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Roger Langen successfully defended his title as provincial champion and won over tough competition with a very nice 4/5 score. Congratulations Roger! This is his 7th NL Open win. The Newfoundland and Labrador Open 2018 was held at the MUN Engineering building in St. John’s from October 19-21.

Langen was instrumental in starting the annual championship in 1969 and in stirring interest in chess in the province in the 70’s. Winning the NL Open two years in a row – at 68 and 69 years of age – is a testament to his longevity and tenacity.

Thanks to everyone for coming out. Daley Merrigan, Michael Byrne, and Ray McIsaac all came quite a long way from the west coast to play, while Morley Payne came for the second time this year from the Northern Peninsula. We also had Roger Langen from Nova Scotia and Lawrence Cohen who traveled here from the US.

Thanks so much to Mohammad Kowsari for booking the Engineering conference room playing area, and also the lounge nearby as an analysis room.
Also thanks to Jordan Berson for providing coffee and snacks on Saturday. 🙂
Thanks as well to Brian Oliver who donated several books as door prizes again this year. Almost everyone participating got a book, and there were some nice ones.

I have added some more pictures below. I’ll try to share some games from the event soon. Keep an eye on the ‘Games Corner’ link for updates. It was a pleasure to play and see you all. Hope to see you soon.

Date: Friday to Sunday, October 19-21 at MUN in St. John’s.Venue: MUN Engineering building in St. John’s. Also known as SJ Carew Building.
Engineering Lounge (2nd floor) and nearby conference room. Take the elevator up one floor from main entrance.Structure: 5-round Open Swiss tournamentTime Control: 90min+30sec inc/40 moves, and 30min+30sec increment for the rest of the game.

Please see the Events link for complete details.
I hope to see you there!

It’s rare for a Grandmaster to play in St. John’s or Newfoundland. GM Mark Bluvshtein played a Canadian Chess Challenge as an IM near Memorial University around 2002. And in 2013, GM Aman Hambleton (former NL resident, then an IM), participated in and won the NL Open. Big congrats to Aman on recently achieving his GM title!

Much earlier, GM Bent Larsen, GM Pal Benko, and GM Walter Browne played a Canadian Open held in St. John’s in 1970 (48 years ago!). I was able to find a detailed article on the event written by Vojin Vujosevic, who participated in the tournament. Check it out

It was a real treat that GM Eric Hansen was able to come play our weekend swiss event (February 16-18). He’s still just 25 years old and his chess resume, to name just a few items I’m aware of, includes:

two-time winner of the Canadian Open

currently rated 2629 FIDE (a personal best)

challenger to world champion Magnus Carlsen in lengthy online blitz and bullet matches

live commentator for prestigious events in Saint Louis and the recent 2018 Tata Steel masters tournament in Wijk an Zee

creator of Chessbrah channels and business. The original chessbrah

The chessbrahs are very popular chess streamers on Twitch and YouTube. They often play bullet (1-minute), time odds games, and blindfold games at a ridiculously high level – often while listening to dance/techno music. They also provide commentary for many popular high level chess tournaments such as the Candidates. Eric, Aman Hambleton, Robin Van Kampen, and other chessbrah members have done a lot to promote chess in Canada and their fanbase extends beyond that as well. http://www.twitch.tv/chessbrah

Part of Eric’s motivation for coming to Newfoundland was to fulfill rated game requirements to play the chess Olympiad later this year in Georgia. He also wanted to visit the province since he hadn’t been here before. It was really awesome of him to give his time to play this event, and to hang out and chat.

We had a number of talented new players come out to play, including Xingbo Huang, Brandon Fudge, Nithum Thain, and Curtis Mullaly. Multi-time NL Open champion Anthony Leonard also participated after a bit of a layoff, which was great to see. There was a lot of excitement in the air, for sure. Big thanks to Mohammad Kowsari for reserving the MUN Engineering Lounge for the event.

February Knights – Round 2. Photo by: Michael Pickard

The 5-round, 3-day tournament kept everyone pretty busy, but we were still able to bring Eric to O’Reilly’s on George Street in downtown St. John’s for some traditional music and drinks, and to see some local people. A group of us also had dinner and chatted with Eric at a restaurant/brewery called Yellowbelly on Sunday evening. It is really impressive that he has higher ambitions with his chess and with his Chessbrah business, which continues to grow rapidly.

Eric also encouraged us all to come out for dinner and blitz after round 3 on Saturday. He dominated the games from what I could tell, but it was a blast.

Fun blitz after Round 3. Credit: Michael Pickard

At the tournament itself, which was played at 60 minutes per player with 30 second increments, Eric won with a score of 5/5 against Ryan Pickard, Nihad Dervisevic, Anthony Leonard, Jordan Berson, and Steve Martin. He was never really in trouble in any of the games! Congratulations! As mentioned previously, some new players had some very nice performances. Xingbo made draws with Anthony and Mohammad, Brandon won against 2017 NL Open co-champ Jiaying and he drew against Anthony, Curtis drew against Steve, and Nithum gave Nihad a really hard fight in a losing effort. Full standings here.

Here are two of Eric’s games against Jordan and Steve (Jordan, Mohammad, and I shared second place):

The NL Open this year came down to the wire with 4 players tied with 3/4 going in to the final round, so these two games had the most on the line. Roger Langen won over Rob Moloney and Jiaying Wang won over Mohammad Kowsari. There won’t be a tiebreak this year so 1st place is shared between Roger Langen and Jiaying Wang (pictured below). Congratulations!!

Currently retired and residing in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Roger Langen previously won the provincial championship in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1974. His sixth win in 2017 puts him in a tie with Warrick Walker for the all-time record. This is the first time Jiaying Wang has played the NL Open and she tied for first as part of a very strong field while still a junior player! She is attending her final year of high school at Holy Heart. She is also the co-winner of the 2017 U18 U16 girls Canadian Youth Chess Championship.

3rd place prize was shared between Mohammad Kowsari and Ray McIsaac.
Top under-1700 was shared between Brian Oliver and Rob Moloney. Congrats to all the winners.

1st place two-way tie – 40% + 30% = $167.50 to each
3rd place tie – 15% = to $35 to both players
under-1700 -15% = $35 to both players
Great performances by many players, including Rob, Ben, Gary, and Brian.

Big thanks to everyone for coming out, especially those like Ray McIsaac and Morley Payne who had quite a long trip from other areas of the province. It was great seeing you again. I hope everyone enjoyed the tournament.

Thanks as well to Morley for contributing a generous donation to the prize fund.
Brian Oliver generously donated five chess books as door prizes which were won by tournament participants in a random draw. Thanks to Brian for those.

I’d like to thank Mohammad, Jordan, and Nihad for help and advice leading up to the tournament and with organizing this tournament as well.

The 2015 NL Open was played at Memorial University in St. John’s from Oct 16-18, and after five rounds Jordan Berson was crowned provincial champion. Jordan also won the event after a playoff in 2009, but this time he needed no extra time to polish off the competition, scoring four wins and a draw against the toughest the field had to offer.

And what a field! Seventeen players, including five former NL champions, with representation from both coasts and Labrador. Not bad, considering that there are 18 current CFC members in the province!

Second place was shared by Sudharaka Palamakumbura (the only player to nick a half-point from Jordan, and the only other player to go undefeated), and Ray McIsaac, who more than justified his long trip over from the west coast with four wins.

Mohammed Reza Kowsari won the “best performance” prize, Ryan Pickard took home the top junior prize (donated by Ray McIsaac), and Anthony Leonard won the door prize (donated by Steve Martin).

Anthony Leonard ably organized and directed the tournament, with assistance from many quarters. Morgon Mills hosted round 4 as a “luxury round” at the Guv’nor Inn, and several players contributed generously to the prize fund and to organizational expenses.

A meeting was held to discuss future event organization, with the following results:

the 2016 NL Open is scheduled for Oct. 21-23, 2016

weekend events will be held quarterly in 2016 (alternating organizers, with Anthony Leonard assisting)

Our first rated Standard event of the year will be taking place this weekend. I have already mentioned this to players that were present at last Tuesday’s chess meet. Morgon Mills, one of our highest rated players who represented us well at the Canadian Closed a couple of years back, will be in attendance. Details are as follows:

Entry fee: $15 ($10 for Juniors and Seniors) CFC Membership is required this event. It is currently priced at $44 a year. For those renewing their memberships or purchasing a new one, the entry fee for the event will be waived.

Time controls: 75 minutes + 30 second increment added after every move.

Tournament format: Swiss, 5 rounds (if we get 6 or more players). Half-point byes will be available if requested in advance, however they won’t be available for the final round.

The tournament will be at MUN. Friday and Saturday we will be at the Chem-Phys building, in room C-2026. This was the location of the NL Open last year. However, on Sunday we will be in a different room: in the nearby Science building in SN-2036. We were unable to get the same room for the entire weekend unfortunately.

The prize structure remains TBD by the number of attendants. Morgon has generously offered to pay the rating fees so the fund will be 100% of the entry fees.

Those that are intending to play in this event, please let me know by e-mail or phone: (709) 770-6579. Please bring boards and clocks if possible.

The Barry Flynn Trophy was unveiled this January, with plaques for Labrador chess champions Bryn Wood 2013 and Morgon Mills 2014. The trophy was locally made by woodworker Nick McGrath, and will be awarded annually to the winner of the Labrador Open tournament.

This year, as in 2013, the tournament was in two stages–but this time the first stage wound up with a massive tie for qualification places, in which no one was a pushover and everyone won at least one game. In the end, the finals were a five-player round robin played over a few weeks, with more than one nail-biting finish. Check out the games corner to see with your own eyes.

Barry Flynn poses with the trophy named after him. Barry is an excellent woodworker himself, and has made a beautiful chess table of different kinds and grains of wood.

A big thank you to everyone who attended the NL Open this year. Anthony Leonard was the undefeated champion with 4.5, drawing only to Steve Martin. Nihad Dervisevic came in second with 4.0 points, losing only one game, to Anthony. As well the redoubtable Brian Oliver defeated three players, and played excellent games against much higher rated opponents. We awarded Brian the prize for best performance. Ryan Pickard received the prize for best junior.

We would like to thank Steve Martin, Peter Noftall, Chris White, Morgon Mills, Alick Tsui, Jordan Berson, Chris Dawson, and Michael Pickard for their help in making this year’s NL Open a success. In particular we’d like to thank Ray McIsaac for his generous $100 donation, and Alick Tsui for his generous $30 donation.